Fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq

President Bush marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq on Monday as the White House tried to counter Democratic attempts to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Bush was expected to issue a plea for more patience in the war, which has stretched longer with higher costs than the White House ever anticipated. The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room.
The president also was to meet with his National Security Council on the war and hold a closed-circuit television conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad.
Entering its fifth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 members of the U.S. military.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this morning asked Americans "to be patient" as the war in Iraq entered its fifth year, acknowledging early missteps in the conflict but saying "it is worth the sacrifice" to have toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
With a new security plan underway and more American troops deployed to help dampen sectarian violence, "we will start to know relatively soon whether the Iraqis are living up to their obligations," to take more responsibility for security, Rice said.
She said also it was probably a mistake not to have put in place a "more localized, more decentralized" plan to rebuild the country, and that the U.S. from earlier on should have put in place the more forceful counterinsurgency strategy now being pursued under the command of Gen. David Petraeus.